Clinton begs forgiveness for shameful tests on blacks

Poor syphilis victims were used for research, reports Mary Dejevesky

President Bill Clinton has offered a formal apology on behalf of successive United States administrations for what is seen as one of the most shameful episodes in 20th-century American history: the use of impoverished black syphilis victims for a 30-year medical research project without their knowledge or consent.

Four of the eight survivors of the experiment, now aged between 90 and 100, made the journey from Tuskegee, Alabama, to be guests of honour at a highly charged White House ceremony yesterday afternoon. People in Tuskegee were able to watch a special satellite relay.

They heard Mr Clinton plead for forgiveness, saying solemnly: "What was done cannot be undone, but we can end the silence ... We can look you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people: `What the United States did was shameful and I am sorry'."

The US government had "broken the trust that is the very foundation of our democracy", Mr Clinton said. Those who ran the study had "abandoned the ethics of man".

The research project - described by President Clinton as "clearly racist" and "deeply, profoundly, morally wrong" - began in 1932 and involved 400 black men whose syphilis was deliberately left untreated, even though treatment and eventually a cure became available as the study, and the men's disease, progressed. The project was not halted until 1972, when it was stopped following an expose by the Associated Press news agency.

The men were never told that they had syphilis and knew their disease only as "bad blood". The purpose of the study was to track the passage of syphilis and its effects on black males. The men, who were all poor, had signed up for a federally funded medical care programme.

The Associated Press established that 28 of the men died directly from syphilis and another 100 from syphilis-related complications; at least 40 wives had been infected and 19 children. The victims and their families subsequently received financial compensation, but - until yesterday - no apology.

Now, more than 25 years after the experiment ended, the Tuskegee syphilis study is identified as an episode that has stained race relations in the US and fostered black cynicism of whites in authority, including those in the medical profession. Among the results noted by Mr Clinton yesterday were the very low participation of blacks in current medical research programmes and the paucity of black organ donors.

As a token of his apology, Mr Clinton announced that the government would set up a "lasting memorial" to the victims in the form of a bioethics research centre at Tuskegee University. He also pledged the accountability of federally funded medical research.

The White House ceremony was seen by observers as a preliminary to a major presidential initiative on race relations. Mr Clinton is reportedly hoping to make such an initiative a hallmark of his second term, although the project has become mired in internal politicking.